Product Description

Halloween has never been so popular and so little understood... until now. This new book reveals the secret history of Halloween. Its findings are unexpected and occasionally controversial. Halloween was not the "Celtic Festival of the Dead" - far from the claims of druid sacrifice and blood rites, the feis of Samain was in fact marked by notorious revels of drinking and feasting. The dead were actually brought to 31st October by the later Christian festivals of All Saints and All Souls. Ancient monuments including British standing stone circles and pyramids in Egypt and South America were aligned to the rising of the star constellation of the Pleiades - at October's end. The most famous of the Scottish witch trials centered on an alleged plot to assassinate King James VI, hatched at a Halloween night witches sabbat. Irish and Scottish customs and superstitions travelled with emigration to America. Halloween rites described in an 18th century poem by Robert Burns survived into 20th century America and today's trick or treating is an evolution of Scots guising. Halloween has its origins in Scotland. The huge success of the Harry Potter novels has coincided with the unprecedented rise in Halloween's popularity and the mainstream acceptance of modern witchcraft. All three have been attacked by the Fundamentalist Religious Right, which seeks to have them banned from American schools and communities. "Halloween, you'd not be surprised to know, is my favourite holiday." - J.K. Rowling

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #845555 in Books
• Published on: 2001-10-01
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 268 pages

About the Author
Mark Oxbrow is a writer and folklorist from Edinburgh, Scotland. Mark has been a core member of the Beltane Fire Society for many years and developed the Samhuinn festival at Halloween. The Society's events attract over twenty thousand annual revellers. Mark has contributed to BBC radio programmes, and has been interviewed online and for television. He has lectured widely on folk and fairy lore, Scots history and Arthurian legend, and seasonal customs and festivals.

Customer Reviews

Wonderful collage of mythology and contemporary observation
In this book, Mark Oxbrow traverses not only the earth, but also, quite literally, time and space.

Pulling together aspects of European folklore, mainly that of Scotland and a wider Celtic culture, ancient history and contemporary happenings such as the Day of the Dead in Mexico, he illustrates a wonderful tale which explains in colourful and intriguing detail, the origins of what has become Halloween. This is a far reaching and sometimes surprising investigation, featuring a cast of characters scarier than any seen at a modern halloween ball.

Many readers of traditional Celtic lore and Egyptology will find their standard cosmological fayre challenged in a way which not only makes you stop and think, but may ultimately seem to be a sensible and believable alternative. Though this work concentrates a lot on mythology and folklore, it's certainly not a book aimed purely at academics, wiccans or pagans. Its a very accesible, honest and at times openly sentimental journey which will hopefully open the minds of its readers to a world of history and mythology long since lost in a flurry of capes, fangs, pumkins and other paraphenalia of modern festive marketing.

In fact Oxbrow's evolution of this feast of plenty in days of old to trick or treat in suburbs of smalltown USA will have you looking over your shoulder next Halloween, not on the lookout for stealth attack by children sporting fireworks and cheap masks, but in the hope that maybe, just maybe, theres something much more ancient and magical lurking in the shadows.

The book is abundantly illustrated with antique postcards, medieval woodcuts and colour and black & white photographs, many of these by the author himself.

I can't wait to see what he comes up with for christmas !!